A cross-sectional exploratory analysis between pet ownership and sleep, exercise, health and neighborhood perceptions : The Whitehall II cohort study

A cross-sectional exploratory analysis between pet ownership and sleep, exercise, health and neighbourhood perceptions: The Whitehall II cohort study Gill Mein (corresponding author), Robert Grant. Faculty of Health, Social Care and Education. Kingston University and St George’s University of London Background: To explore associations between pets, and specifically dog ownership and sleep, health, exercise and neighbourhood. Methods: Cross sectional examination of 6575 participants of the Whitehall II study aged between 59-79 years. We used self-assessed measurement scales of the Short Form (SF36), General Health Questionnaire (GHQ), Control, Autonomy, Self-realisation and Pleasure (CASP), Centre for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), sleep, exercise, and perceptions of local neighbourhood. In addition the Mini Mental State Examination which is administered to test global cognitive status (MMSE) Results: We found 2/7 people owned a pet and of those 64% were “very” attached to their pet. Mild exercise in metabolic equivalents (MET-hours) was significantly higher in pet owners than non-owners (median 27.8 (IQR 18.1 to 41.8) vs 25.7 (IQR 16.8 to 38.7), p=0.0001), and in dog owners than other pets (median 32.3 (IQR 20.8 to 46.1) vs 25.6 (IQR 16.8 to 38.5), p<0.0001). Moderate exercise was also significantly higher in pet owners than non pet owners (median 11.8 (IQR 4.2 to 21.9) vs 9.8 (IQR 2.8 to 19.5), p<0.0001), and dog owners than owners of other pets (median 12.3 (IQR 4.2 to 22.2) vs 10.1 (3.1 to 20.0), p=0.0002) but there were no significant differences with vigorous exercise. We found that pet owners were significantly more positive about their neighbourhood than non-owners on 8/9 questions, while dog owners were (significantly) even more positive than owners of other pets on 8/9 questions. Associations with sleep were mixed, although dog owners had less trouble falling asleep than non-dog owners, with borderline statistical significance. Conclusion: Dog owners feel more positive about their neighbourhood, do more exercise, and fall asleep more easily than non-dog owners. These results suggest that dog owners could be more likely to exercise by walking their dogs and therefore may be more familiar and positive about the area in which they walk their dog

The Critique of Scholastic Language in Renaissance Humanism and Early Modern Philosophy

This article studies some key moments in the long tradition of the critiqueof scholastic language, voiced by humanists and early-modern philosophers alike. It aims at showing how the humanist idiom of “linguistic usage,” “convention,” “custom,” “common” and “natural” language, and “everyday speech” was repeated and put to new use by early-modern philosophers in their own critique of scholastic language. Focusing on Valla, Vives, Sanches, Gassendi, Hobbes, and Leibniz, the article shows that all these thinkers shared a conviction that scholastic language, at least in its more baroque forms, was artificial, unnatural, uninformative, ungrammatical, and quasi-precise. The scholastics were accused of having introduced a terminology that was a far cry from the common language people spoke, wrote, and read. But what was meant by “common language” and such notions? They were not so easy to define. For the humanists, it meant the Latin of the great classical authors, but this position, as the article suggests, had its tensions. In the later period it became even more difficult to give positive substance to these notions, as the world became, linguistically speaking, increasingly more pluralistic. Yet the attack on scholasticlanguage continued to be conducted in these terms. The article concludes that the long road of what we may call the democratization of philosophical language, so dear to early-modern philosophers, had its roots – ironically perhaps – in the humanist return to classical Latin as the common language

Protection of Visual Functions by Human Neural Progenitors in a Rat Model of Retinal Disease

BACKGROUND: A promising clinical application for stem and progenitor cell transplantation is in rescue therapy for degenerative diseases. This strategy seeks to preserve rather than restore host tissue function by taking advantage of unique properties often displayed by these versatile cells. In studies using different neurodegenerative disease models, transplanted human neural progenitor cells (hNPC) protected dying host neurons within both the brain and spinal cord. Based on these reports, we explored the potential of hNPC transplantation to rescue visual function in an animal model of retinal degeneration, the Royal College of Surgeons rat. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Animals received unilateral subretinal injections of hNPC or medium alone at an age preceding major photoreceptor loss. Principal outcomes were quantified using electroretinography, visual acuity measurements and luminance threshold recordings from the superior colliculus. At 90–100 days postnatal, a time point when untreated rats exhibit little or no retinal or visual function, hNPC-treated eyes retained substantial retinal electrical activity and visual field with near-normal visual acuity. Functional efficacy was further enhanced when hNPC were genetically engineered to secrete glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor. Histological examination at 150 days postnatal showed hNPC had formed a nearly continuous pigmented layer between the neural retina and retinal pigment epithelium, as well as distributed within the inner retina. A concomitant preservation of host cone photoreceptors was also observed. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Wild type and genetically modified human neural progenitor cells survive for prolonged periods, migrate extensively, secrete growth factors and rescue visual functions following subretinal transplantation in the Royal College of Surgeons rat. These results underscore the potential therapeutic utility of hNPC in the treatment of retinal degenerative diseases and suggest potential mechanisms underlying their effect in vivo

Lens stem cells may reside outside the lens capsule: an hypothesis

In this paper, we consider the ocular lens in the context of contemporary developments in biological ideas. We attempt to reconcile lens biology with stem cell concepts and a dearth of lens tumors